Bill Gates and Vaccines. Everyone has an opinion- either he’s the world’s greatest philanthropist or a eugenicist.
Gates went on Sky News this Sunday to speak of being back to normal in 2022 and aspirations to have all countries over 80% vaccinated.
When asked if sharing the vaccine recipe was a good idea, Gates vehemently said NO, citing intellectual property rights concerns.
Twitter was quick to respond:
Trending: Mike Lindell: “It’s Over” — Tells Steve Bannon He Finally Has All The Evidence He’s Been Waiting On!
If you've ever wondered whether Bill Gates actually cares about the "global poor", here is your answer. https://t.co/USnsDGsHK6
— jane chung (@orientaljanedoe) April 26, 2021
Between his vaccine patent sharing comments yesterday, his positions on climate, and that he now owns more arable land than anyone else in our country, it's not a good feeling, not good at all.
— BiRdMaNsF67 🌈 (@MorrowJamesAdam) April 26, 2021
Can we stop pretending Bill Gates is a good billionaire now? There are no good billionaires. https://t.co/jccBI1YuND
— Scott (@ScottNiswander) April 26, 2021
Everybody who says Bill Gates is "the only good billionaire" or "smart and insightful" needs to re-evaluate their entire life https://t.co/Qtfe9McTDR
— Deerly 🔜 ANE (@DeerlySincerely) April 26, 2021
https://twitter.com/AdvilReIief/status/1386824083841724416
Here is what Gates said in the Sky News interview about not sharing the vaccine recipe:
Sky News: “There has been some speculation that the changing intellectual properties rules- and allowing these vaccines -as you say- the recipe for these vaccines- to be shared would be helpful. Do you think that would be helpful?
Gates: NO!
Sky News: Why not?
Gates: Well, there are only so many vaccine factories in the world. And people are very serious about the safety of vaccines. And so, moving something that had never been done- moving a vaccine from- say a J&J factory into a factory in India- that is novel. That is only because of our grants and our expertise that can happen at all. The things that’s holding things back in this case is not intellectual property, there’s not like some idle vaccine factory with regulatory approval that makes magically safe vaccines…uhh…you have got to do the trial on these things and every manufacturing process has to be looked at in a very careful way.”
He doesn’t think sharing the vaccine formula is helpful. The philanthropic doesn’t want to share something that is, purportedly, life-saving? Can it get more ironic?
Our friend’s at Fox News had the story, reminding us that Gates has always stressed the importance of distributing vaccines to the entire world:
Gates has long stressed the importance of distributing vaccines to the entire world and has pledged tens of millions of dollars over the past year to help in the effort through his nonprofit, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“We have new drugs and more potential vaccines than we could have expected at the start of the year,” Gates said in a statement in December. “But these innovations will only save lives if they get out into the world.”
The foundation has already committed over $1.7 billion to the global COVID-19 response, including supporting the delivery of COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines, particularly to developing countries.
Gates’ wife, Melinda Gates, the co-chair of the Gates Foundation, also said in December that they “are confident that the world will get better in 2021,” but it will require the action of global leaders.”
So he advocates for the global distribution of vaccines but won’t actually help the global development of vaccines. I wonder what else is Bill Gates is a hypocrite about?
Here are some more reactions from Twitter after hearing how selfish Gates truly is:
https://twitter.com/AlexJonesWs/status/1386786449706692612
Bill Gates’s Philanthropic Giving Is a Racket https://t.co/c9pCOPY0CF
— Jacobin (@jacobin) April 26, 2021
The global battle over drug company patents for COVID-19 vaccines is the latest skirmish in the irrepressible conflict between property rights and human rights. It’s no surprise that Bill Gates, the monopolist billionaire, has taken the side of patents. https://t.co/AHQcGZmRwN
— Jacobin (@jacobin) April 26, 2021
I just want to live in a world without Bill Gates.
— Bret 🍁 (@Bret_Sears) April 27, 2021
Wow, Bill Gates has reached comic book supervillain status. https://t.co/jev9ETp5oi
— Theron Gilliland, Jr. 🌿🕊⚖🗳 (@hotgayscientist) April 27, 2021
Bill Gates wins Oscar for best villain in real life https://t.co/aIeGDZiJkW
— GUY BOCIAN (@GuyGuy60) April 26, 2021
Even Yahoo commented that Bill Gates was under fire for his anti-sharing vaccine comments:
University of Essex Law professor Tara Van Ho tweeted: “Gates speaks as if all the lives being lost in India are inevitable but eventually the West will help when in reality the US & UK are holding their feet on the neck of developing states by refusing to break [intellectual property rights] protections. It’s disgusting.”
The director of Global Justice Now, Nick Dearden, wrote on the platform: “Disgusting from Gates here ‘southern countries haven’t had it so bad, they should be pleased to get our excess vaccines when we’re done, there aren’t any idle factories’. Who appointed this billionaire head of global health? Oh yeah, he did.”
Mr Gates said that it was “not completely surprising” that rich countries had prioritized themselves for vaccines.
He added: “The fact that now we’re vaccinating 30-year-olds in the UK and the US and we don’t have all the 60-year-olds in Brazil and South Africa vaccinated, that’s not fair, but within three or four months the vaccine allocation will be getting to all the countries that have the very severe epidemic.”
Journalist Stephen Buranyi tweeted that Mr Gates “acts like an optimist but has a truly dismal vision of the world. We can’t make more vaccines, we can’t compromise profits, we can’t trust poor countries with our technology, and they’ll get their scraps after we eat. Awful”.
He added: “The poverty of vision from him and other ‘leaders’ has been astounding. Smallpox, Polio, both had joined-up responses that shared knowledge and technology across the world. We’re happy to let the *pharma* market sort out the biggest crisis of our lifetimes. Totally on autopilot.”
In an opinion piece in The Washington Post on Monday, Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz and the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, Lori Wallach, argued that “preserving intellectual property barriers to covid-19 vaccines is morally wrong and foolish”.
They claimed that “waiving intellectual property rights so developing countries could produce more vaccines would make a big difference in reaching global herd immunity”.
You can watch the full interview with Bill Gates from Sky News here:
What do you think- is Bill Gates a true philanthropist or a selfish eugenicist? Leave us a comment and share your thoughts below!
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